Foxconn’s Taiwanese parent company Hon Hai has promised a 20% raise to all 420,000 employees, but says that this has nothing to do with the suicides and does not address the reportedly sweatshop-like work conditions at Foxconn. Foxconn had been playing Buddhist music, presumably to soothe workers, and apparently went as far as sending a letter to employees asking them not to kill themselves, which they retracted. In addition to manufacturing iPhones for Apple, it produces devices and components for Dell and HP.

Currently, no less than Sony, Google, Nokia, RIM and BT (British Telecom), are considering releasing an iPad competitor, according to various online sources. Dell’s Streak tablet (5″, 7″, 10″ versions) will be out fairly soon, especially in Europe. HP just bought Palm and seemingly scrapped their Windows 7 tablet project shortly afterwards. I wouldn’t be surprised if they soon have a tablet with Palm WebOS out in the future. And of course there are a while slew of other companies with tablet devices already out, including Fusion Garage’s JooJoo and Aigo’s N700.